BOOKS
Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping
By Judith Levine
Free Press (Simon & Schuster)
Remember when the best possible thing we could do to “not let the terrorists win” was go shopping? Horrified by President Bush’s post-9/11 appeal to the common man’s “continued participation and confidence in the American economy,” Judith Levine decided to buy only necessities. After whittling away all extemporaneous items — prepared food, movies, fancy clothes — she quickly marveled at all the money and time she had left over for other pursuits.
Levine is a chatty and amiable guide through the world of conscientious anti-consumerism. Along with documenting her successes and failures in Not Buying It, she also explores what others in the movement are doing around the country to stanch rampant consumerism. She visits a Voluntary Simplicity support group for people who have recently suffered depressing financial downfalls, attends a day-after-Thanksgiving (“Buy Nothing Day”) protest through Times Square with militant anti-retail performance artist Reverend Billy (revbilly.com), and meets an activist who has “an ecological footprint the size of a hare’s.”
Despite some quibbles with the author about the finer points of the meaning of necessity — Levine embarrassedly admits that she owns three vehicles and two homes, one in Vermont and another in New York City — this is a worthwhile book that considers the political, spiritual and environmental philosophies of spending less money and buying fewer things. It will appeal to readers of both Adbusters and Real Simple, and reading it will leave you inspired. — Paul Constant
For more info, visit judithlevine.com
Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally
By Alisa Smith and J.B. Mackinnon
(Crown)
Little did Alisa Smith and J.B. Mackinnon know the adventures that lay before them when they decided to dive into a yearlong experiment of eating food exclusively grown within 100 miles of their house. The idea percolated between them over dinner one winter’s night, and by the first day of spring they were braced to go beyond supermarket shelves and into the outlying “wilderness” to find what edible was out there, grown and raised, within 100 miles of Vancouver.
Their engaging story weaves their travels through the Pacific Northwest with the region’s natural history, their own personal memoir (including encounters with a bear), recipes and copious reports from the kitchen. Full of both hope and doubt, the couple details what eating locally means to them — from Alicia’s kitchen awakenings to J.B.’s research into how the native inhabitants used to live off the land feasting on salmon, berries, nuts and oolichan grease — a fermented fish paste made of smelt and wild camas flower bulbs.
They show us that the reality of the hundred mile diet in today’s world is mostly about returning to the past, which requires planning the entire year of eating during harvest season by actually going straight to the farmers and fishermen and buying in bulk. Survival depends on experiments in canning, preserving, freezing, fermenting and consuming lots of potatoes.
Throughout their journey, they make friends and inspire others to live as “locavores.” And they find they are not alone in a world of people who want to taste the difference that 100 miles makes. — Lynn Peemoeller
For more information, visit 100milediet.org
MUSIC
Wátina
Andy Palacio and the Garifuna Collective
(cumbancha)
Never heard of Garifuna music? Don’t worry, most of us haven’t. But if Belize’s most famous punta rock star Andy Palacio has anything to do with it, that will change very soon. On Wátina, Palacio abandons his synth-driven dance music to explore the gentler side of his heritage with expert help from producer Ivan Duran and from Garifuna musicians throughout Central America.
Legends about the origin of the Garifuna people abound: perhaps the most appealing holds that slave ships foundered in the Caribbean in the 1600s, freeing thousands of Africans, who melted into the local Arawak and Carib populations, creating a fiercely independent culture whose music, language and traditions draw equally on West Africa and the New World.
Wátina dives into those traditions, exploring Garifuna sacred music as well as contemporary compositions. The result is remarkable: Palacio’s aching voice guides half the disc, while up-and-coming Garifuna musicians (and aging legends like Paul Nabor) take the lead on the rest. The acoustic songs are languid and rhythmically complex, keeping at their heart a quality that’s one part melancholy, one part sun-drenched joy. In a word, bittersweet.
The music shares some DNA with Cuban music, and indeed, as producer Duran has done for Garifuna music what Ry Cooder did for classic Cuban music. While some may argue he’s smoothed down Garifuna to appeal to a northern palate, the resulting music is wonderful and destined to reach many more people’s iPods than it would have otherwise. And that’s not a bad thing. — Sarah Bardeen
For a copy, visit rockpaperscissors.biz
Unsung
Slaid Cleaves
(Rounder)
Every community in this country of ours has a six-string poet who can bring a tear to your eye. They play open mics and off-nights at dusty clubs, rarely catching our attention because of one thing or another: lack of vocal talent, lack of ambition, lack of connections or simply a matter of too much competition and too small of a demand from consumers for the kind of music that made Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan legends a generation or two ago. But one contemporary singer/songwriter who was fortunate enough to win an international audience has gathered up his favorite songs by unknowns he’s met on the road over the years, in order to give them the spotlight they so deeply deserve. The wistful, heartbreaking Unsung is a 13-song profile of small-town America and artful commentary on our society from the modern pauper troubadours who pause long enough to notice. Sharp, tender sketches of factory workers, strippers, poets, criminals, nosy neighbors, retired race car drivers, crushed hopes and early-morning rain on the windshield all bring goosebumps, while “Millionaire,” a commentary penned by under-known Lincoln, Rhode Island veteran David Olney, paints a narrative about power and corruption in our nation’s smoke-filled rooms that offers, in the delivery of Cleaves, nothing but icy chills. Some of the auteurs sharing Cleaves’ spotlight are up-and-comers (the youngest is 22) while others are semi-retired. But they all share the gift of “turn of phrase,” and the insight of a sage. And Cleaves, the Maine-raised, Austin-based legend in the making can now add “interpreter of song” to his resume. In fact, he’s never sounded better, either in voice or on guitar. — Todd Spencer
For more info, visit slaid.com
FILM/DVD
God Spoke
Directed by Nick Doob and Chris Hedegus
Early on in God Spoke, the new documentary about Al Franken, we see the Minnesota comedian speaking with a group of university students. One young woman asks him whether he is simply answering right-wing propaganda with left-wing propaganda.
“What I do isn’t propaganda,” he responds, a veteran entertainer at the top of his game. “What I do is jujitsu. They say something ridiculous and I subject them to scorn and ridicule. That’s my job.”
As a comedian and satirist, Franken is absolutely correct: that is his job. And since he is still as charismatic and quick on his feet as he was in his early days on Saturday Night Live, he makes for an engaging centerpiece. At its most heartening, God Spoke is a lively and entertaining chronicle of a comedian at work. But since his public war with Bill O’Reilly and his attempted launch of a viable liberal radio network, Franken has been trying to switch jobs.
Filmmakers Nick Doob and Chris Hedegus successfully capture the more somber side of Franken’s story — his rocky transition from court-jester to court aspirant. But then Franken the satirist is forced to enter the fray and engage with Anne Coulter, Sean Hannity, and other foot soldiers in the right wing news networks’ own campaign. He soon finds himself trapped by having to engage with the very obscenity he’s made such a successful career lampooning, and the comedy takes on much more tragic overtones. Jujitsu is a powerful skill, but how much can jujitsu do against a tank? — Sheerly Avni
For a copy, visit godspokefilm.com
What Babies Want: An Exploration of the Consciousness of Infants
Directed by Debby Takikawa, narrated by Noah Wyle
It wasn’t that long ago the medical community believed newborn infants didn’t feel pain, let alone experience a full range of emotions. A documentary called What Babies Want: An Exploration of the Consciousness of Infants discusses how experiences in utero, during birth and in the first hours of life can have profound impact on rest of our lives; deeply affecting our trust in the world and ability to make emotional connections.
What do babies want? Mostly just what you might expect a helpless being at the mercy of his/her caregivers to want: nurturing, love and a sense of safety and being wanted. Being held to the breast isn’t just pleasant for infants, this DVD argues: it’s vital to their sense of self. But modern life — in particular our medicalized birth industry — has had a tendency to neglect these needs through practices like squiring infants off to the nursery rather than nestling them in mother’s arms.
What Babies Want offers ways to shape early experiences — from tribal welcoming ceremonies to birth plans that enable the greatest bonding between family and infant. Not all births go as planned, however. There are ample opportunities to make children feel bonded and loved, according to the makers of this DVD, and to heal negative experiences associated with birth.
“I believe we have the chance to erase all forms of violence through the proper approaches during pregnancy, birth and the first three years of life alone,” author Joseph Chilton Pearce says in the documentary. Whether you believe that or not, What Babies Want reminds us how deeply to honor the process of childbirth — and of the amazing, unique individuals it brings. — Nicole Achs Freeling
For a copy, visit whatbabieswant.com